Can we Ghanaians Trust our Lives on Cuba -trained Doctors?

Ghana and Cuba have a mutual arrangement to train Ghanaians who have a clout to study medicine and qualify to be doctors under a Cuba government scholarship scheme. This very kind gesture of the Cuban authorities is not demanding any form of reciprocity, neither by way of exchange of same nor by payment in kind; thanks to the leadership arrangements of ex-President Rawlings. For many years now, some selected Ghanaians continue to flock into Havana – Cuba to be trained in the medical sciences and other allied fields for the benefit of Ghanaians. The objective of this offer of training by Cuba is to save lives and an ability to postpone death where necessary by capable trained hands, competent enough to fulfil this unique objective as enshrined in the Hippocritic oath ingeminated in the Helsinki and Nuremberg declarations. To achieve this objective, capable students with the relevant clout and capacity-building must be the sole criteria for selection, yet what we see in Ghana is a nepotic selection of favourates based on Party political colours and flavour; a selection of incapable Party faithful with no smattering of knowledge in anatomical and biological sciences but can only qualify for selection by reason of Party-belonging where the said Party is the ruling authority, hence even housemaids with the poorest of poor SHS grades are pushed on to pursue a course of training to become doctors in Cuban institutions where they are enroled as a matter of protocol curtesy without checking their academic and vocational suitability.

The image inserted in this script is my uncle who walked into Sefwi Wiawso hospital on an arranged appointment to undergo a surgical operation to remove a hernia. To his woe, he walked into this hospital with intent to undergo a healing process on a surgical table but ended up on a butcher’s table only to be carried home in a coffin. Nana Kwaku Besseah, Agyaaku as he was affectionately called, walked into the hospital on Monday 4th November 2006 with his full life in vigour and agility, was butchered and pronounces dead the following day as a result of some botched up surgical operation performed by a Cuba-trained ‘Doctor’, a butcher indeed, leaving behind a widow and six hapless children. This hospital, staffed with surgeons trained-in-Cuba of a high magnitude of incompetence did not accept vicarious responsibility on grounds of bioethical incompetence and impropriety in the conduct of the operation by the said ‘doctor’/butcher. There have been similar such cases across Ghana where victims have suffered untold jeopardy at the hands of medically incompetent doctors who are later identified to have been trained in Cuba.
A young woman in Berekum claimed on Hot FM radio to have suffered loss of her entire womb a few weeks ago through a supposed medical treatment at an approved hospital. This woman who will remain childless for the rest of her life complained to the authorities for compensation yet what she received was insults and vilification by the hospital authorities. Ghana needs stricter laws governing the medical profession whereby incompetence can be punished either jointly or severally as it pertains in other countries as a way to foster competence. R v Adomako (1994) All ER vol 74 is a cited case involving medical negligence in English Law against incompetence. More >>

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